I blinked at the question and at her defeated tone. She sounded like she’d lost something and couldn’t get herself to care very much about anything else.
“Enough.” The guard at the front pushed her back.
Her hands sparked with amethyst light, but her dull eyes held nothing of rebellion. “Of course,” she mumbled obediently.
Lucus and I spoke at once.
“What’s going on here?” I demanded of the guards, not liking the feel of this place or the way the guards had bullied the mage.
“Explain yourself,” Lucus barked.
The first guard muttered, “You’re not our alpha,” before they turned to leave.
Lucus and I traded looks as they left. “We’re in deep shit, aren’t we?” I said.
“Quite possibly.”
“How did they trap you?” the mage asked again, her voice almost robotic. This gal wasn’t right in the head for sure.
“I used a portal in a spell book. Listen, I’m super new to this, and my magic keeps trying to kill me.”
Lucus’s arm twitched, and he flexed his hands like the magical binding irritated him. “She needs training. Can you help us?”
The mage’s mouth turned down at the edges, distrust the only emotion in her dead-like eyes. “You’re fae,” she said, her French accent letting go of the word more quickly than my English version did. I supposed the tree root magic was translating between us.
Lucus inclined his head. “And her fated mate.”
The mage’s mouth hung open. She shook her head. “Fated… Impossible. And you can’t have portalled here,” she said to me. “Not without one of Arleigh’s guard with you.”
I shrugged. “We did.”
Narrowing her eyes, she cocked her head. “I think maybe they muddled your memory. Well, my name is Nora Smyth. You have much to explain before I can train you. Let’s make a fire and talk over food.”
“Finally!” Hekla threw up her hands. “A person that makes some sense!”
The fire crackled as we told our tale again, ate the last of the leek soup Nora had made for us, and gobbled down the two blueberry scones Hekla had wisely tucked into her pockets before she’d headed up to the castle to rescue me. I had the best best friend.
“I don’t want to ask,” I said over a mouthful of scone, “but what is the deal here? Seems like you aren’t being treated fantastically.”
Seated on a fallen tree next to the rotting stump where Lucus and I sat, Nora tilted her head like she was considering my words. “The deal…”
Lucus bumped me with a hip. “The roots’ language magic sometimes struggles with your colloquialisms.”
“Ah. Nora, you are treated as lesser by thine fae bitch upon thou weird vine throne. What sayest thou about this foul abode?”
Lucus rolled his eyes, and Hekla snorted, spilling a spoonful of soup.
Nora coughed and set her wooden bowl by her boots. “While I’m glad you can smile despite our situation, I find myself less inclined to joke.”
I felt like an asshole. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be an annoying jerk.”
Hekla held her soup bowl with trembling fingers. “Coren can be an accidental asshole sometimes. You’ll get used to it. She has a good heart.”
I glanced at her. “Gee, thanks.”
A faint smile passed over Nora’s lips as she looked at us, and for the first time, she almost looked normal. What had this woman been through that had ripped the life from her?
“The fae believe we’re less than them.” Nora put another branch on the fire. “With the Yew Bow, they have imprisoned us here to do as they see fit.”
My pulse hammered my eardrums. “Imprisoned?” Shit. “For how long?”
Lucus and Hekla stared at Nora.
“Forever.”
My stomach flipped over, and a shiver rattled my spine. And then we were all asking questions at the same time.
Chapter 5
Nora held up a hand to quiet us, then pointed to me. “You first.”
Heart coming out of my chest with panic, I stuttered the first things that came to mind. “Two questions. One, how do they imprison you? Can’t you magic yourself out of here? And also, you keep saying we. Where are the others?”
“That was three questions,” Hekla whispered in between chewing her nails.
I glared at Hekla, then looked back to Nora.
“Only one other mage lives.” She jerked her head to indicate the second dark structure behind us. “He’s there. I’ll wake him once it’s fully night. He avoids any unnecessary contact with the fae, keeping to himself during the day when they’re most likely to visit. Don’t mistake his actions for cowardice. He bears the brunt of the Yew Bow’s boundary, and the toll it exacts from him is unconscionable.”
I sat, adrenaline rushing through me, making my head light. Were we trapped here? Surely not. I’d chosen to come. But did that matter?
“What is the Yew Bow?” I asked. The second root chamber showed no movement at all. I shuddered, thinking of someone huddled in there, half dead. “Can I bring him some soup? Hekla, do you have any more scones hidden in that sweater of yours?”
Nora’s shaky, sad smile made me want to cry. “You can bring him some soon. You are kind.” She jabbed the fire with a charred and sharpened stick. “As for your question of how the fae keep us trapped… It is complicated.”
A life of pain seemed to pass over her features. Her eyelids shuddered like she might be blinking tears away though none appeared to be gathering. The corners of her mouth drew down in something worse than a frown. The impulse to go to her and throw an arm around her sang through me, but I held myself back. She might not want a stranger showing her attention like that.
Lucus added a log to the fire. “This Yew Bow…it’s not the one from the legends, certainly.”
The mage locked her gaze on him, her body stiffening. She was obviously not a fan of the fae. “It is one and the same.”
“Let’s not be stingy with details, folks,” I said. “What
